Hey,
I'm new to ripping DVD's, but I recently completed a whole DVD rip, I used DVDtoAVI to convert those files to an editible format in Premiere (with less hassle anyways), so now I have a nice playable format with a frame rate of 29.97, which I didn't think would cause a problem. Now, I don't know much about frame rates, but I figured higher meant better quality. Anyways, to my point, when I use these files with a high frame rate in Premiere, it simply doesn't want to work. Very very slowly (to the point W-XP is saying "not responding"), I finally figured out that with a file about 23.9 (whatever ^^ ...) frame rate, it wasn't being slow at all. Now, to my actual question, would it hurt anything to take these files from 29.97 down to 23? And also, could I simply work with files encoded to 23 and then when exporting them out of Premiere (as the amv) and move them back up to 29.97? Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
~Cosmos

The answer is in the guides. I cant simply answer your question, because to fully answer it, it would take the length of a good guide, and as some are already written, Im not going to write another just for you. I can tell you that everything you think you know about framerate is flat out incorrect, so forget it and read a guide.

To be more specific though, what you want to learn about is:
1. How NTSC video is field-based, and how the fields work.
2. How to perform Inverse Telecine (IVTC) To reconstruct the original frames from the given fields.

The framerate is not usually an indicator of quality unless it is under 24 fps (frames per second). There are generally three framerates you will encounter more often:

1) 29.97. It's the framerate of NTSC video. NTSC is used in USA and Japan so, anything coming from these places, will be at this framerate.

2) 25. It's PAL and is used in Europe. If you live in US you probably won't see this thing in your life

3) 24. This is the actual rate at which movies are shot and projected in the cinemas. Since you will agree that 24 is different from 29.97 and 25 there should be a "trick" to make all this things coherent between them.

At this point I would suggest you to read a little bit about inverse telecine to understand what this process is about.

The best suggestion I can give you is, if your footage was first shot at "Film" framerate (24 fps), to inverse telecine it before editing in Premiere: this will give you the best quality possible.

I still have to understand why Premiere was hanging while you were using 29.97 footage.... hmmm....

That helps a bunch, thanks so much! As for Premiere not liking the 29.97fpm, I have no idea what's wrong. More than likely it's because I'm on a cheapo computer that's about 700mhz and 260mb RAM, most editors recommend 1.3ghz or better *sigh* ...Anyways, thanks for the help ^^
~Cosmos

Cosmos Studio wrote:That helps a bunch, thanks so much! As for Premiere not liking the 29.97fpm, I have no idea what's wrong. More than likely it's because I'm on a cheapo computer that's about 700mhz and 260mb RAM, most editors recommend 1.3ghz or better *sigh* ...Anyways, thanks for the help ^^ ~Cosmos

Nope, that's not it. Many people edit with things agin to a P2-450 with as little as 128MB RAM. Hells, your computer's just a little slower than mine, though I have more RAM.

I have no idea then. LoL ...My computer just doesn't like me suppose. I've tried installing video cards in it three times now (three totally diff. cards) and they all messed up my system and I gave up after three weeks of trying (per card). ^^;
~Cosmos